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TOK
My
Crew,
My Dogs
With
Shaggy’s pop-reggae fusion controlling international charts
for 2001, the buzz is on: What will be the next big boom to rise
from Jamaica’s bottomless musical psyche? Smart money is on
My Crew, My Dogs for 2002. T.O.K.’s reggae/R&B-infused
debut set packs all the explosive power of Shaggy x 4.
Unlike reggae dancehall
stars of yesterday, Xavier “Flexx” Davidson, Craig “Craigy
T” Thompson, Alistaire “Alex” McCalla, and Roshaun
“Bay-C” Clarke – the crew of 23 year-old Kingstonians
collectively known as T.O.K. - didn’t need to hunt down the
right Stateside-Jamdung hybrid to take their music
worldwide. Raised on both MTV and Jamaica’s sound system circuit,
their blend of beats and sensibilities comes naturally.
Check the latest in several
year’s worth of T.O.K. hit singles, the long-legged “Chi
Chi Man,” a never-say-die boomshot included on My Crew that
was released way back in 2000. Still raising ‘booyakas’
on dancehall floors, the track’s currently in rotation at mixed
urban radio stations from coast to coast. Pure, unadulterated T.O.K.,
“Chi Chi Man” is about hard beats driving a hard subject
– a slam at corrupted individuals eating away at society’s
foundations like termites (“chi chi” means termite in
Jamaican patois) – and vocals that slide back and forth between
glorious, near operatic singing and rough-riding deejaying [reggae
rapping] to rival any screw-faced MC out of Jamaica’s
pressure cooker ghetto.
Opposition leader Edward
Seaga adopted the gem of rhythm and song to boost his bid for Prime
Minister in the next national election, but T.O.K.’s staying
out of it. “We’re not at all politically affiliated,”
insists Craigy T. “We make our music for all different types
of people from all different walks of life. And T.O.K. is too big,
too broad, and too damn wicked for any head to ignore it - hip hop,
R&B, dancehall, Babylonian or Rasta.
The T.O.K. story started
humbly enough, 9 years ago, with four ambitious high school boys.
Alistair, Roshaun, and Craig were in the school choir at Campion
College headed by John Binns, while Xavier attended Calabar High.
Originally, the acronym T.O.K. stood for Touch of Klass, but over
the years it has taken on different meanings from ‘Taking Over
Kingston’ to ‘To Klaat,’ and whatever else the creative
minds of T.O.K. can come up with.
From the beginning, life
was about “T.O.K. - school and music,” says Alex. “Xavier
and I loved singing and were good friends. I went to school with
Craig and Roshaun, so we brought them in. This was in the early
90’s, during the whole emergence of Boyz II Men, so we started
out singing their songs and sounding a whole lot like them. But
in growing together as a unit, we developed the sound you hear now.
It’s about combining the hardcore dancehall sound with R&B
harmonies and hip hop, thus creating something brand new.”
“We all want to
keep on excelling and pushing as far as we can go,” says Alex.
“Sky’s the limit. We’ve found a certain chemistry
and we want to maintain that chemistry and vibe. You grow with the
business, track what changes are
happening and adjust. We all can sing, harmonize, and deejay, so
that opens a wide range of different avenues for us at any point,
if any one avenue is the in thing.”
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